Cuba: Update to CUB31690.E of 14 June 1999 and CUB30409.E of 6 November 1998 on the treatment of persons who have overstayed their exit visas, illegally exited or made a refugee claim abroad and returned to Cuba; whether such individuals would be prohibited to work or receive food rations

An immigration counsellor at the Canadian Embassy in Havana provided the following information in correspondence sent to the Research Directorate on 22 May 2001.

If a Cuban national has been granted an exit permit, he/she will be allowed to stay outside of Cuba for a period of eleven (11) months. If the person overstays, he/she will lose his/her Cuban residence. Cuban citizenship is never lost. If the person loses the residence, his/her properties, job and food rations will be lost as well unless a special permit is given by Cuban immigration.

If the Cuban traveled to Canada on an official visit for a short period of time and he does not come back after this period of time, he is considered as having deserted, unless an authorization to this effect was obtained from the workplace or other governmental services. Desertion is effectively a very serious matter and can result in various forms of punishment such as loss of travel possibilities for family members.

If the person traveled outside of Cuba as visitor and requests refugee status but returns to Cuba before eleven (11) months, as far as we know, no punishment other than probable loss of job will be applied by the Cuban authorities. There seems to be no incarceration for such cases. For example, all those people who attempt to leave Cuba by raft, if they fail and are sent back, are normally back on the street either the following day or after a few days to allow for some administrative documentation and often try to repeat rapidly after. There seems to be no serious punishment for this.

Of course we cannot verify with officials what policy on this is and we can only provide an opinion. Also there are various considerations that can result in different actions taken by authorities on what appears to be similar cases. But, in general, we reiterate that to our knowledge, the punishment is not one of incarceration but possible job loss and various minor administrative annoyances.

The US Committee for Refugees reported the following in its 2000 Country Report on the treatment of Cubans who have illegally exited and who have subsequently returned to Cuba from the US:

As part of the migration agreement [the 1994 migration agreement between Cuba and the United States], Cuba formally agreed not to punish Cubans for their illegal departure whom the U.S. Coast Guard interdicts and returns. The Cuban penal code (Articles 216 and 217) makes "illegal exit" a crime punishable by up to three years' imprisonment, if the attempt to leave is nonviolent, or up to eight years if it involves violence or intimidation. Cuba imposes more severe penalties in cases involving hijacking. Although the Cuban authorities have imposed long prison sentences in some cases, at other times they have briefly detained returnees and then released them.

While the agreement is supposed to prevent direct retaliation for the illegal departure that immediately precedes the Coast Guard interdiction and return, it does not prevent Cuba from prosecuting the returnee on other grounds, including previous attempts at illegal exit. Cuba sometimes punishes returnees without actually prosecuting them for illegal departure, most commonly by denying them employment.

The agreement allows U.S. diplomatic officials to monitor the treatment of persons returned to Cuba by the United States. It offers no protection to rafters or rejected asylum seekers returned to Cuba by other countries (Jan. 2001).

Dan Kane, a spokesperson for the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) in Washington, was cited as saying in a 29 August 2000 El Nuevo Herald report that since the migration accords between the US and Cuba have been signed, the US authorities have visited a great number of individuals repatriated, some of whom have reported of being subjected to [translation] "extreme harassment" upon their return.

Human Rights Watch World Watch Report 2001 reported that Cubans who attempted to leave Cuba without official permission were prosecuted for "illegal exit" in 2000 (Dec. 2000). The report further added that the Cuban authorities had "denied arbitrarily" the permission for some Cubans to leave the island unless they purchased an expensive exit permit (ibid.).

In January 2000, CubaNet News, a non-partisan and not-for-profit organization that is dedicated to the promotion of an independent press in Cuba, reported that, based on statistics kept by the Cuban-based Information Office for Human Rights (Oficina de Información de Derechos Humanos, OIDH) and the National Coordination of Political Prisoners and Former Political Prisoners (Coordinadora Nacional de Presos y Ex Presos Políticos, CNPEPP), 60 political prisoners were detained for reasons related to illegal exit (14 Jan. 2000).

In August 2000, El Nuevo Herald reported that a non-official Cuban human rights group, Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation (Comisión de Derechos Humanos y Reconciliación Nacional, CDHRN), had received numerous complaints of harassment in the past five years from individuals who had attempted to leave the island illegally and had been subsequently captured before arriving in the US (29 Aug. 2000). According to the Commission's president, Elizardo Sánchez Santacruz, all persons who were returned to Cuba were subjected to police surveillance and an undetermined number of these individuals lost their employment (ibid.). Sánchez related the situation of Fernando Salas Pellán, who after being returned to Cuba, had lost his teaching position permanently and was barred indefinitely from teaching elsewhere in the national education system for attempting to illegally exit Cuba (ibid.).

Several sources in 2000 and 2001 reported the situation of Cubans who had left or who had attempted to leave the island upon return to the country.

CubaNet News reported that Arístides Ramón Salgado Corrales and his wife, María Caridad García Tavera, were serving sentences of six and five years respectively in the province of Guantánamo for illegally exiting the country (16 Feb. 2000).

The Independent Press Bureau of Cuba (Buró de Prensa Independiente de Cuba), an organization that disseminates information received from independent journalists working in Cuba, reported that seven youths were fined between 10,000 and a thousand pesos on 1 August 2000 for attempting to leave the island illegally (9 Sept. 2000). The youths were also sentenced to 25 days in prison (ibid.).

Rolando Valdés Cruz, a medical doctor, was detained at the Valle Grande prison after he and 31 other people attempted to leave Cuba by boat on 1 June 2000 (El Nuevo Herald 18 Sept. 2000).

Humberto López, member of the Cuban Foundation for Human Rights (Fundación Cubana de los Derechos Humanos), and his sons were arrested on two different occasions and held in detention for several hours in Moró, Ciego de Avila province, for allegedly attempting to leave the country illegally (CubaNet News 19 Sept. 2000). After his detention, López, described in the report as a [translation] "peaceful opponent of the Cuban regime" lost his job for not respecting the Cuban socialist state and became the object of systematic harassment by the Cuban political police (ibid.).

Yunier Figueredo was sentenced to two years of correctional service with internment (trabajo correccional con internamiento) for illegal exit (CubaNet News 21 Dec. 2000).

The Cuba Free Press Project, an organization that publishes reports from the Cuban Professional Independent Journalists and Writers, reported in January 2001 the situation of Randy Cabrera, a political prisoner who had completed a 12-year sentence for illegal exit and who then was re-sentenced to another 14 year imprisonment for reaffirming his intent to leave the country (17 Jan. 2001).

In April 2001, CubaNet News reported that [translation] "repression against the population and against human rights activists in particular is on the decline," and that illegal exit is no longer considered a political crime (2 Apr. 2001).

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

References

Buró de Prensa Independiente de Cuba. 9 September 2000. Magali Estrada. "Imponen altas multa por fallido intento de salida ilegal." [Accessed 31 May 2001]

Canadian Embassy, Havana, Cuba. 22 May 2001. Correspondence from an immigration cousellor.

CubaNet News [Coral Gables, FL]. 2 April 2001. Tania Díaz Castro. "Una batalla desigual." [Accessed 14 May 2001]

_____. 21 December 2000. "Misiva sacada del Combinado de Guantánamo denuncia violaciones de los derechos humanos." [Accessed 14 May 2001]

_____. 19 September 2000. "Policía política maltrata a disidente y a su familia." [Accessed 14 May 2001]

_____. 16 February 2000. "Desnutrición de prisioneros en la cárcel de Guantánamo." [Accessed 14 May 2001]

_____. 14 January 2000. "Situación de los presos políticos cubanos: un resumen parcial." [Accessed 14 May 2001]

The Cuba Free Press. 17 January 2001. María del Carmen Carro. "En Huelga de hambre dos opositores de las provincias orientales." [Accessed 31 May 2001]

Human Rights Watch. December 2000. Human Rights Watch World Report 2001. [Accessed 31 May 2001]

El Nuevo Herald [Miami]. 18 September 2000. "Tratan de impedir que devuelvan 2 disidentes a Cuba." [Accessed 14 May 2001]

_____. 29 August 2000. Wilfredo Cancio Isla. "La Habana acosa y deja sin trabajo a los balseros repatriados." [Accessed 14 May 2001]

US Committee for Refugees. January 2001. 2000 Country Report: Cuba. [Accessed 31 May 2001]

Additional Sources Consulted

IRB Databases

LEXIS/NEXIS

World News Connection (WNC)

Internet sites including:

Amnesty International

Excélsior [Mexico]. Search Engine. 2000

Human Rights Watch

Immigration and Nationality Directorate, UK

Inter-Amercian Human Rights Commission (IAHRC)

La Jornada [Mexico]. Search Engine. 2000

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